I Loved You Wednesday (4 page)

So I can’t go back to bed.

But Chris is on her way home.

To sleep of course, for hours and hours. Leaving me to face the rest of the long day alone. By myself. No one else.

Unless you count the dogs. Who are inside, eating my sheets.

Chapter Two
 

Monday morning around eleven the phone rings. It is Chris.

“I’m
so
depressed!” is her greeting.

“What about?”

“My agent just called, waking me in the middle of the day, telling me I didn’t get the soap.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hate being disturbed with bad news.”

“I know.”

“She said the producers thought I was a most interesting type, though. What do you suppose that means?”

“Probably that they thought you were a most interesting type.”

“No subtext there, huh?”

“Probably not. What are you going to do now?”

“What do you think? I’m going to get up, take half a dozen Valium for breakfast and then go back to sleep.”

“I see.”

“This is not a day worth facing the world.”

“All right.”

“Will you call tomorrow and wake me?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, by the by, I called my friend Roger who said he’ll gladly loan us; he won’t be using it this weekend.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know. Seems he’s strung out over the latest stock-market plunge or something. He asks only that wedrive him to work. He’s planning to spend the entire holiday locked in his office, doing paperwork and brooding.”

“Makes sense.”

“All right. Talk to you tomorrow. And remember, we’ll be leaving bright and early Wednesday morning no later than ten for a good, healthy start.”

“You bet.”

“Good night.”

“Good morning.”

The rest of my morning is spent being rejected at a couple of auditions for commercials and keeping an appointment with a casting director.

The first audition is a voice-over for Alpo dog food in which I try out for the part of a misunderstood cocker spaniel.

The second finds me as a concerned young husband-father coming in from the rain with my dripping kids, insisting that if we don’t all gargle Listerine immediately, we’ll be stricken with cholera or something before dinner.

Early in the afternoon I see a top casting director at Grey Advertising who tells me I have fabulous teeth and then sends
me
down the hall to show
them
to her assistant so they can remember to bring in my choppers next time there’s a toothpaste call.

Later in the afternoon, Pat Meltzer, my peptic-ulcered, acerbic ace theatrical agent at the William Morris office, calls.

“Hello?”

“Stay there, Steve! It’s Pat. I’ll be right back!” And before I know it, I’m on Hold for at least three minutes. Eventually she comes back on the line, firing away in her least relaxed rat-a-tat delivery.

“Okay, Steve. Now . . . where were we?”

“So far, I’ve said hello.”

“Okay. Here it is. Great deal cooking. Sounds right up your alley. They want someone tall, attractive, terrific. I told them you had black hair and two of the warmest blue eyes in show business and talent, too, and they said send you over. ... I can’t be expected to do everything myself, Joan, call the Coast yourself and tell them if the scripts aren’t here in three days I’m threatening to blow up the CBS building! I’m sorry, Steve, where were we?”

“They said send me over.”

“Right. Anyway it’s for a comedy called
March into April.
They’re taking it to Broadway, of all places. Larry Hagan’s producing and I want you to go down to his office on Fifty-fifth Street this afternoon and pick up sides for Alfred, got it? It’s a principal role, so don’t fuck it up. The audition’s tomorrow, and don’t tell me there’s no answer, dummy, they must still be out to lunch. Really, Joan, just leave word with the message desk and bother me only with major catastrophes, okay? I’m sorry, Steve. Where were we?”

“March into April.
I think I’ve got it all.”

“Good. Okay ... I can’t believe anyone would really want to make agenting their life’s work. Oh, well. Talk to you later. JOAN! DROP EVERYTHING AND GET ME DAVID MERRICK’S OFFICE!”

Click.

And so, acting under orders, I bicycle downtown and pick up sides for Alfred, the twenty-five-year-old son of a freewheeling, swinging, hip couple who rebels by going straight.

Amusing idea.

Returning home, I study the three-page scene for a couple of hours, trying to work out something of a characterization from the information which comes across in the sides.

And there I sit the following morning, Tuesday, backstage at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, waiting to try out for
March into April
, finding myself alternately composed, confident and cowering. This crowded audition is running typically behind schedule, so I must impatiently hang around for over an hour, making small talk and sharing anxiety attacks with fifty other unemployed neurotic actors.

Finally, a very tall stage manager approaches, pointing along, accusing finger at me, which I take as a signal meaning the lions are again famished and I’m the next Christian to be thrust into the arena.

I walk to the edge of the wings and watch the end of the tryout being rendered by the fellow onstage. He finishes and tells the producers something of his acting background. They thank him; he smiles, thanks them back profusely and calmly exits.

As he walks past me into the wings, however, his smile sours, and he flings his script to the floor, cursing savagely.

“He seems upset,” I say to the stage manager, who looks at me disdainfully, saying, “Follow me!”

So I follow him.

Onstage there is one very large, very bright, very naked light bulb which makes everyone look like the Phantom of the Opera. Union costs are so high and rules so strict that if you so much as turn on a spot or footlight, it’ll cost dearly. Union generosity, however, permits the presence of this one migraine-inducing bulb.

“This is Steve Butler!” announces the stage manager to the darkened house.

“Hello, Steve,” comes a voice or two from the blackness of the theater.

“Hello,” I answer back to the inky darkness. Auditioning like this is like working before a two-way mirror. They can see you, but you can’t see them.

I hear some fidgeting going on in the orchestra: some discussion, some moving about. So I wait for things to settle down. But things don’t settle down, and soon some new voice from the mysterious outer depths calls out, “Whenever you’re ready!”

So I begin reading the scene. A big confrontation moment between me (Alfred) and my mother, whom I’ve just learned is readying to convert to Buddhism. And reading the part of my mother, with typical managerial un-enthusiasm, is the six-foot-three stage manager.

I’m up there doing my best, fighting for my life. And may I tell you how annoying and distracting it is to be plagued by whispering, bustling and general inattentiveness from whoever is sitting out there in that exalted darkened unknown?

My mother the stage manager delivers his/her last line, which is the cue for my final furious speech, and as I address myself to him/her, he curiously turns and leaves to summon the next actor for the reading following mine.

So there I am. Alone onstage. Spewing lines and going into my prepared rage, addressing my anger, though, at no one in particular, since no one is listening.

I finish the speech, and for the first time since I walked onstage, the house is quiet. There is a short silence while I stand there, blankly staring at the back of the darkened theater, contemplating alternative careers, until someone finally breaks the mood with more whispering.

That goes on for a while until still another voice from somewhere out there asks, “Tell me about yourself, Steve. What have you done?”

I walk toward the front of the stage, hoping by some miracle of eye control to be able to make out in the dark some idea of to whom it is I’m speaking. But since I cannot, I address my résumé to the entire house, telling my life’s work to a lot of empty seats.

Then the whispering picks up again until at last someone says, “Okay, Steve. Thank you!” I nod my head, for whatever it’s worth, and walk off into the wings, the whispering still going on out there, now behind my back.

At least now I understand why the actor before me blew his stack.

That evening I speak with Chris, complaining about the rude treatment I received at my audition this morning. Chris hasn’t capacity for too much sympathy, though, as she just spent the day dealing with no less than four hostile casting directors on four very crowded commercial calls.

“I’m glad we’re getting away tomorrow,” I tell her.

“Me, too,” agrees Chris, adding, “A few days’ rest before facing this rat race again. I’ve already got three commercial calls next week and an Off-Broadway musical revue to sing for.”

“Good for you.”

“Okay. Roger and I’ll pick you up tomorrow at ten sharp. And for God’s sake, Steve, be on time!”

The following day, Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, at exactly ten o’clock, I stumble down to the lobby, replete with luggage, ski equipment and the two panting, asthmatic bulldogs.

And there I wait. And wait and wait and after waiting forty-five minutes, Chris and Roger pull up in this very unusual-looking foreign car that has no two pieces of equipment matching. It looks like a Mazda, has a VW engine, a spotted paint job and no doubt a thirty-day guarantee which must have expired seven years ago. Very strange, but knowing how Roger likes to tinker around with cars, taking them apart and reassembling them, understandable.

I throw the dogs in the back and climb in, squashing myself next to Roger. The car putters off.

“Hi, Roger.”

“How are you, Steve?” asks Roger, nose to nose, in his generally subdued, upper-crust manner.

“Fine, fine.”

“Sorry we’re a little late, Steve,” Chris chimes in.

“A
little?”
I question back.

“The reason we’re late, Steve, is I had to instruct Chris on how to jiggle the key when she puts it in the ignition.” Roger’s a very serious fellow.

“Jiggle the key?” I ask, managing to keep a straight face.

“Right. Like this.” Roger demonstrates rather earnestly the correct way to jiggle the ignition key. “Now that she knows how to jiggle it, the rest of your journey is in safe check.”

We drop Roger off at work and are at last off to the country.

Except when, a few minutes later, we drive onto the West Side Highway.

“Chris?”

“Yes?”

“You’re going south.”

“No good?” “No good, Chris. Vermont is north.”

“Oh,” says Chris thoughtfully, as though she’d just picked up a valuable lesson in geography. “What should I do?”

“Guess.”

“Uhm, let’s see. Get off at the next exit?”

“Not a bad start.”

“And then turn around and go the right way?”

“Couldn’t’ve figured that one out better myself.”

A few minutes later we are heading
north
on the West Side Highway. All systems are go!

Until we approach the next exit.

“Oh, look!” says Chris gingerly. “That sign says FDR DRIVE KEEP RIGHT! We don’t want that!” And, saying so, she proceeds to KEEP LEFT, which brings us down a ramp and off the West Side Highway at the Twenty-third Street exit.

“I think that was a mistake, getting off there. Huh?”

“Chris, I’m trying to remain patient and calm.”

“One would never know it to look at the color of your face.”

I take over the driving at this point, at least till we get out of the city. Then, I promise, I’ll turn the driving back over to Mad Wheels.

Driving onto the West Side Highway (our third entrance), I then go up the Taconic State Parkway until—

“Chris,” I say calmly, watching Roger’s speedometer needle descend to zero as the car grinds to a halt. “You’ll never believe this. . . .”

“Steve, why are we stopping?”

“That’s what you’ll never believe.”

“What?”

“I think we’re out of gas.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Impossible!”

“It’s not impossible. Do you see that we are no longer moving?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s because we have run out of gas.”

“Oops!” gulps Chris, suddenly remembering in a seizure of total recall how Roger had warned that our Mazda-cum-jalopy has the gas tank of a Honda, the thirst of a Cadillac, a broken gas gauge and had implored her to fill the tank before leaving the city.